"It is best to do things systematically, since we are only human, and disorder is our worst enemy." - Hesiod

These days, companies have more occupational health and safety program elements to
choose from than ever before: audits, poster campaigns, hazard identification programs,
engineering solutions, safety gear, behaviour based safety, etc. etc. etc. Right now, we have
more components - more tools - in our safety arsenal than at any other time in history. Yet
in most cases, accident rates remain high. Why?

The closer you look, the more obvious it becomes that most companies are overlooking one
key principle in their safety programs:

EVERYTHING IN HEALTH AND SAFETY IS CONNECTED!

A bunch of isolated elements does not equal effective safety management. Consider the
human body. Along with a lot of other pieces, it has lungs, a heart, kidneys, and a digestive
system. Scientists study these organs separately, and we think of them as independent
entities. In fact, doctors build entire careers around treating just one organ.

Yet in reality, these organs are not independent at all. For example, the heart muscle depends
on the lungs to deliver oxygenated blood, the digestive system to deliver food, and the
kidneys to take away waste. Without these other organs, the greatest doctor in the world
could not make your heart function normally. It would die.

Similarly, the lungs can't live without blood pumped by the heart, food from the digestive
system, and waste removal services provided by the kidneys. And the kidneys need the
heart, the lungs, and the digestive system. And the digestive system needs the heart, the
lungs, and the kidneys. Although we usually think of each of these organs in isolation, the
truth is that they are completely interdependent. Each needs the others to live and thrive.

It's the same with OH&S: everything is connected. Yet we rush off after elements, as if
doctoring our OH&S programs with that perfect individual piece will make our accident
rates go away.

Of the available OH&S elements, many can be viewed as a key to safety, but none of them
is the key. The real key, as I see it, is to fit some essential pieces together into an integrated
whole - to create a unified theory of health and safety excellence, then use that theory to
create OH&S systems that live and thrive.